Musical Volume
by Yotsubadancesintherain5
Summary: It's a staple in shoujo manga to go out for karaoke.


It took quite a while for the schedules to match up, save for Hori, but Nozaki was able to book a session at a karaoke place. He carried a small notepad and pencil, with the excuse that it contained the list of songs he wanted to sing. He entrusted Chiyo to take pictures for him to which she very enthusiastically agreed. Nozaki's heart was warmed that she was so eager to work on the references for the manga.

He watched as everyone got ready for the session, punching in the numbers for the songs, taking in some of the food and pouring over the song book. Nozaki thought that this was going to be a solid manga story. It was going to have the beautiful duet between the two leads, popular songs,and the twist where the tomboy had the most beautiful singing voice.

"Waka, here, eat this," Seo said, poking the potato chip against the corner of his mouth. Wakamatsu looked like he wanted to leave, or die. Or both. Nozaki's sour feeling intensified when he realized that the song book found itself right in front of Seo.

"Seo!" he exclaimed, making everyone jump. "Go buy some cake!"

"What? As if, I don't have any money," she said. Her gaze almost fell to the song book before Nozaki yelled again.

"I'll pay you!"

At that, Seo got up and left to buy the cake. Nozaki could not relax, however, because Mikoto grabbed the book and flipped through it, almost in a frenzy, before he found the song he was looking for.

"Here!" he said, triumphantly, "I wanna sing this one!"

"What anime is it from?" Chiyo asked cheerfully.

"It's not! I heard it on the radio! It's really pretty! I swear!" Mikoto's face was getting redder with every protest.

"Ah, you watch anime?" Kashima asked.

"No! I play-" Luckily for Mikoto, he seemingly reached his maximum embarrassment and simply flopped back down on the bench, his face an impressive shade of red.

"I'll, um, punch it in," Wakamatsu said, trying to be helpful. He put the number in, and Kashima reached for a microphone.

"Oh, wait, wait," Chiyo protested, "Shouldn't the person who wanted to sing it sing it? Um, karaoke etiquette?"

"I guess so," Kashima said. She moved over to Mikoto and tried to put the microphone in his hands. He gripped them limply, some sort of melody crawling out of his mouth.

"He's trying to sing it," Nozaki thought. He hoped for Mikoto's sake that Chiyo didn't take a picture of this.

When the song was over Kashima said, "Okay, I'm gonna pick a song!"

"Wait, Kashima!" Chiyo said. "I wanted to, um, I wanted to sing a foreign song!"

Nozaki thought that she had the cute pleading down to an art.

"A foreign song?" Kashima asked. "Oh, choose a duet, we can sing together!"

At that, Nozaki said, "I will sing it!"

Chiyo's face went to a red that rivaled Mikoto's face. She shoved the camera into Kashima's hands and pleaded, "Please take a picture! Lots!"

"Okay," Kashima replied, confusion etched on her face from the proclamation.

The song went well, though Chiyo stuttered on a few of the words. Nozaki had to agree that some of them were difficult. But finally singing a song got the ball rolling, and even though Kashima's singing hadn't improved in the slightest, Nozaki would consider the karaoke venture a success.

When the hours were up, and everyone started to pack up their things, Seo opened the door and said, "Hey, nobody gave me money to buy the cake."

She looked around the room and added, "Wait, we're done?"

"So you all had a good time at the karaoke?" Hori asked. He was looking through the camera's gallery for references. "Sakura took some good pictures."

"It went well," Nozaki replied. He was busy sketching out the rest of the thumbnails.

Hori got to the page where Suzuki and Mamiko were singing a duet. He looked at the reference photo back and forth, wondering if he should ask Nozaki if he realized the implications. Hori weighed his options and past encounters with this kind of thing with Nozaki, so he dropped the matter.

**A/N: Originally posted on AO3 on February 19 2018**


End file.
